


The Perfect Christmas

by finding_niamho



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Canon Compliant, Christmas, Gingerbread House, M/M, Post canon, christmas fun with the gang, post ws, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29164524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finding_niamho/pseuds/finding_niamho
Summary: It's Christmas Eve and the whole gang are coming over to Simon and Baz's to celebrate. Shepard has a surprise tradition for everyone to try that is sure to end in chaos.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 8
Kudos: 36
Collections: Let It Snow Zine





	The Perfect Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> So happy to finally be able to post my fic from the Let It Snow zine!! If you want, check out the zine featuring art by @arnie_.mae (on insta) and other wintery fics and art. Hope you enjoy it! :) 🐟

**Baz**

I wake up on Christmas Eve to Simon Snow poking me in the side.

"Wake up, Baz!"

I turn over to face away from him, attempting to bat his arm away and mumbling incoherently. No conversation before coffee, that's my rule.

Another poke.

"Wake up."

Another.

"Wake up."

A pause.

Then: "Wake up, wake up, wake up,  _ wakeupwakeupwake _ — "

"Ugh!"

I flip back onto my back and the jabbing ceases. Simon's smug, grinning face turns to mine.

I glare at him. "Prat." 

"Love you, too."

He pokes me again. Then he sits up, flinging the duvet away from us and sending a blast of freezing air onto me.

"Simon!"

He grins, and I narrow my eyes in fake annoyance.

"Do you know what day it is?" he sing-songs, ignoring my obvious irritation. I glance at my bedside clock, then whip my head back to him.

He smirks. "Happy anniversary, sweetheart."

We kiss, and then he scampers out of bed like it's on fire.

I raise an eyebrow. “Are you that keen to get away from me?”

"No! It’s just. We have so much to do! It's Christmas, and we need to get the house ready before the others arrive!"

He's like an overexcited puppy wanting a walk. Bless him.

I stand up and hold out my hand. "Let's get to it, then."

I’m then nearly knocked clean off my feet as Simon drags me around the house. Down the corridor we pass the red, green and gold decorations that we put up yesterday. I picked them out, simply because Simon has no taste. He wanted to get purple decorations. 

_Purple._ With _red_. Honestly. 

And, I might add, tinsel. I mean, really? Who wants tacky bits of foil stuck to their walls? Not me, that’s for certain. We have tastefully coloured paper chains; checked ribbon wound around the staircase (that complements the paper, obviously) and, of course, mistletoe. We had a  _ lot _ of fun putting that up (except when Simon kept nearly falling off the ladder). 

Now, Simon’s in the kitchen, getting food ready for today. We’re having a big Christmas meet-up with Penelope, Shepard, Agatha and Lucy; then having a relaxing Christmas day with just the two of us. 

Simon’s standing over a row of biscuits that he left to cool overnight, in the shapes of snowmen and stars. He’s waving a sieve of icing sugar over them, dusting them to make them look like they’ve been snowed on.

“Looking good.”

He turns and,  _ Crowley _ .

I allow my lips to form a smirk and Simon blinks in confusion.

“What?”

I take a step towards him, then reach up to flick off the speck of icing sugar that’s settled on his nose. He responds by jabbing me (again!) in the stomach, so of course, I then have to tickle him on the sides. 

He giggles, falling to the floor. Simon Snow is ticklish  _ everywhere.  _ It’s ridiculous. 

And adorable. 

I stop momentarily to let him breathe, then bend down to drop a kiss on his forehead. I remember the days when I would dream of this. When a dream was all I thought I would get. I would lie in the shadows on my side of the room and imagine him pulling himself towards me and indulging me in a swoon-worthy kiss like he’s doing now. 

I close my eyes and lean into him, winding his hair through my fingers. 

Merry Christmas indeed.

**Simon**

We both jump at the shrill shriek of the doorbell. Baz extends a hand to help me up.

“Of course Bunce is early,” he mutters as he leaves me to finish up the biscuits. 

When I get to the living room (after thoroughly checking that my face is clean), everyone’s splayed on the sofa. Everyone except Lucy, with a massive red bow around her neck, and Shep, who’s sitting cross-legged on the floor showing Baz how his light-up Christmas jumper also plays a song. I have to stifle a laugh at the expression on Baz’s face, especially as it’s worn by someone wearing a jumper with “Fab-yule-ous” splashed across the front. 

Penny and Agatha are on the other side of the sofa and Agatha’s whining at Penny about her “terrible fashion choices.” I’m assuming that means that Penny forced her into that tinsel jacket then. 

Next to them, the Christmas tree is in the corner, decorated with baubles that match the paper chains that hang from the ceiling. Presents lie underneath on the floor that will inevitably be strewn with wrapping paper tomorrow. Gold twinkling lights line the mantelpiece above the fireplace where our spectacularly ugly stockings hang. (I got to pick them out since I let Baz do decorations.)

And among it all are the people that I care about most: my family. This is my first Christmas with a family of my own. It’s going to be perfect.

“Love your sweater, Simon!” Shep calls from the floor. I look down at the jumper I picked out carefully last week, a blue one with “Let it Snow” written on it. I couldn’t resist.

“Thanks! Yours is brilliant!”

Shepard grins and Baz gives me a look like I’m losing it. He then turns his attention to Agatha, who’s desperately trying to get someone on her side in her argument with Penny.

“Don’t you drag him into this.” Penny wags a finger at her. “He wore a full suit in 35-degree heat!”

“Yet wearing a jacket made of tinsel is practical?”

“Put on another jumper.”

“That’ll just make it look  _ worse _ !”

“If I could intervene—” Shep stands up from where he’s been watching the argument like it’s a tennis match. “—I think it’s time to address the reason we’re all here.”

Oh yeah, the surprise. When we all called to arrange this a few weeks ago Shepard announced that he had a surprise tradition for us all to partake in. I take a seat next to Baz.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. It’s time for…” He presses a button on his jumper and off-key music blares from it. Baz and Agatha roll their eyes in unison. “...a gingerbread house-building competition!”

With a  _ whoosh _ _ , _ he flings a cloth from the coffee table to reveal two gingerbread house kits.

“Ta-da!” He drops the cloth so that he can do jazz hands.

“O...kay,” says Penny slowly. “There is potential for this to go horribly, horribly wrong.”

“Do not fear, I have thought of everything!”

I don’t think that does anything to ease her worries. If anything, she looks even more concerned.

“Now, listen up, y’all. ‘Cause I’m only gonna say these rules once.” He turns around, then whirls back to face us. “BOYS versus GIRLS.” He gestures dramatically at each of us.

“Aleister Crowley,” I hear Baz mutter.

“TWO houses, ONE will win, BOTH will be EATEN.”  _ Is he making his voice deeper? _

“Girls in the living room, boys in the kitchen. You shall create a masterpiece for me, THE ALL-POWERFUL JUDGE!”

He drops his hands from where they’ve been flailing around, narrowly missing knocking something over several times.

“Any questions?”

**Baz**

Simon Snow, the Chosen One, the one who defeated the Insidious Humdrum and saved the World of Mages, is currently waging war on a few hunks of gingerbread. He lets out a yell of frustration as yet another piece of gingerbread makes its slow descent down the side of the structure (it is  _ not  _ a house) into the puddle of icing that has formed around it. It’s seeping into the walls (or is that a sideways roof?) as they gradually disintegrate into the mush.

I look up from where I’ve been mixing us up more icing. The packet of icing sugar that came in the box burst when Simon tried to open it; now its contents are spread across the worktop, our hands, our clothes, all over the sink…

Let’s just say that it’s a good thing that Bunce and Wellbelove are in the living room.

“How are you so good at baking yet so bad at this?” I ask.

“This isn’t baking, this is engineering! It’s worse than IKEA!”

I brandish the spoon at him, splattering icing onto the floor. “You will not mention that name under my roof!”

“ _Our_ roof.” His voice sounds flatter than usual when he says it, defeated. By a build-your-own gingerbread house.

“Simon. It’s just a gingerbread house.”

He folds his arms on the table and lays his head on them.

“It’s not the house, is it?” I move the gingerbread away from his head and sit across from him. He doesn’t like to be touched or talked to when he’s like this. I wait.

Eventually, he murmurs, “I wanted it to be perfect.”

I move a hand into the middle of the (rather sticky) table. It’s my way of asking him if he’s ready to talk about whatever’s bothering him. He takes it.

“What did you want to be perfect?”

“Christmas.”

“I don’t understand.”

His hand retreats. “You wouldn’t.”

“Help me to.”

He sits and breathes for a bit, then reaches his hand out again. I give it a squeeze as he stands up and moves to sit next to me, laying his head on my shoulder.

“This… this is my first Christmas with a proper _family._ Growing up, Christmas was just another letdown. I didn’t have anyone I cared about to celebrate it with. But now... I have a family of my own, which is more than I ever could have wished for. So, I dunno. In films and stuff, everything’s always perfect. The house is decorated and everyone eats dinner and opens presents together, everything’s magical—well not actually Magickal, you know what I mean…”

“Where’s this going, Simon?”

“I just wanted this Christmas to be like that. And I… I feel like I’ve messed it up.”

I reach up a hand to stroke his hair. “Simon, listen to me. Christmas is  _ never  _ perfect. Someone always burns the food, or an argument breaks out, and there’s always at least one present from a distant relative that you have to pretend to like. By usual standards, we’re actually doing quite well.”

He rolls his head around to look at the kitchen, which is still absolutely covered in icing sugar and clumps of gingerbread. “Really?” He smirks.

“Absolutely.” I drop a kiss onto the top of his head, then whisper: “Plus it isn’t _technically_ Christmas until tomorrow.”

Tugging at his hand, I pull us both to our feet. “Come, on let’s finish this.”

**Simon**

I guess it could never be real, the Christmas I had imagined in my head. Nothing’s ever perfect, not really. And I guess I’m okay with that now. 

But Baz is here. And Penny, and Agatha and Shep and Lucy. As long as we’re all together, I guess it’s our kind of perfect. 

Ugh, I sound like someone out of those really bad Christmas movies they play on Channel 5. I smile to myself as I watch Baz desperately trying to fix our “house,” tongue sticking out and everything.

“What are you smirking at, Snow?”

My grin widens. “Nothing.”

At that moment, Shep wanders in. You can hear him coming from a mile away in that jumper. His mouth drops open and his eyes widen. He looks like that guy off Community.

“Wow, guys. This is possibly the most chaotic thing I’ve ever seen. And I used to be a storm chaser!”

“Everything’s under control!” Baz calls from somewhere behind the pile of gingerbread.

“You sure?”

“Yep!” I give them both a thumbs up. “Just you wait, in a few minutes this will be spectacular!”

**Baz**

This is spectacularly bad. 

This wouldn’t have happened if Simon hadn’t eaten half of the roof, thinking that it was “extra parts we don’t need anyway.” 

We’re both covered in icing and I’m pretty sure that I saw a sweet in amongst Simon’s curls. Absolutely revolting. 

Which is also how our structure (still not a house) looks, especially on the table next to Bunce and Wellbelove’s neat pink cottage. They (and their house) are looking very pleased with themselves. I can see Bunce trying not to laugh behind her hand, playing it off as a yawn. She’ll pay for that later when we play Monopoly.

Shepard clears his throat, also clearly trying not to laugh.

“Well, well, well. This is going to be close.”

I glare at him as he turns his head back and forth, making a show of surveying each house.

“Ok, I have come to a decision.” He pauses dramatically. “And the winners… are… drumroll please…”

Simon drums enthusiastically on the table.

“... Penny and Agatha!”

“YES!” They high five, looking even more smug than before. I always knew Wellbelove was secretly competitive. Bunce brings it out in her.

“Now…” proclaims Shepard. “Let’s eat!”

**Simon**

We’re back on the sofa, sleepy and covered in gingerbread crumbs. Lucy’s dozing by the fire, bow half undone. The remains of our ill-fated game of Monopoly are scattered across the table. Penny’s and Baz’s competitiveness made for a…  _ passionate _ game. 

At some point, Agatha’s jacket started shedding and Shep’s jumper broke so now it’s making a strange humming noise. A few of the decorations have fallen down and the kitchen’s still a mess. So much has gone wrong. But all these things are what have made this the perfect Christmas. 

I reach for Baz’s hand and squeeze it. He squeezes mine back. 

Laying my head on his shoulder, I close my eyes. Definitely perfect.


End file.
